56: Fugitive Slave Anthony Burns & the Power of Suggestion (Part 2)

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Anthony Burns was born into slavery in Stafford County, Virginia. Despite laws that forbade him to do so, he learned to write and read. He became a preacher. As he got older, there was one thing he wanted more than anything: Freedom. So he boarded a ship to Boston and escaped. For a while, Anthony lived as a free man. But his former “owner,” Colonel Charles F. Suttle Douchelord the Third, wanted Anthony back. Unfortunately, Charles had the law on his side.

Then Brandi finally ends the suspense by wrapping up her two-part series on the Beatrice Six. In last week’s episode, she told us about 68-year-old widow Helen Wilson, who was discovered raped and murdered in her apartment in Beatrice, Nebraska. Police initially suspected Bruce Allen Smith, but a blood test ruled him out. The case grew cold. But then, a hog farmer and former police officer named Burdette Searcey stepped in. He was determined to solve the crime — by any means necessary.

And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases.

In this episode, Kristin pulled from:
“Anthony Burns Trial of 1854,” www.famous-trials.com
“Anthony Burns and the Fugitive Slave Act,” www.longroadtojustice.org
“Anthony Burns,” PBS
The book, “Boston slave riot, and trial of Anthony Burns”
Wikipedia entries for Anthony Burns, Twelfth Baptist Church, Boston Vigilance Committee, Fugitive Slave Act of 185, and Franklin Pierce

In this episode, Brandi pulled from:
“Presumed Guilty Part Four: Pointing Fingers” by Catharine Huddle, Lincoln Journal Star
“Presumed Guilty Part Five: Threat of Death” by Joe Duggan, Lincoln Journal Star
“Presumed Guilty Part Six: The Trial” by Catharine Huddle, Lincoln Journal Star
“Presumed Guilty Part Seven: DNA Changes Everything” by Joe Duggan, Lincoln Journal Star
“Presumed Guilty Part Eight: A New Investigation” by Joe Duggan, Lincoln Journal Star “Memories of a Murder” by Rachel Aviv, The New Yorker
“Even in 1989, forensics didn’t point to men and women who went to prison for crime” by Joe Duggan, Omaha World-Herald
InnocenceProject.org